second draft
second draft
by Wynn Everett
this is not hillbilly folk singing
he insisted, there is form,
a necessary pattern,
no need for commas
breaking the rhythm
the syntactic unit
subtracts from the world
while removing punctuation
allows for the divine
don’t rhyme
it reads beginner
aren’t we beginning?
fight against first person
keep tone universal
punctuation undercuts
movement, as many end stops
can be interesting but also
expose your lack of education
and your theme, he said,
a theme overdone,
love?
but more interesting – the enemy.
if one can find a muse to hate
aggravating enough to justify the ink
write away, dig deeply
with smiling pens
deaf and exploding,
go.
Wynn Everett teaches us in his poem the necessity of form
in a condensed reality without resorting to a didactic lesson
plan when dealing with the Muse.
Those last 2 stanzas sink into my psyche. I’ll take those over all the lessons on punctuation and form. Very Brenda Ueland.